Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/283

 THE FEUDAL LAND SYSTEM 239 themselves the dependents and followers of some wealthy and powerful noble. A less humiliating personal connection than that of client- age or commendation, because it was cemented between (equals and not between a powerful rich man and The isome poor fellow who was liable to be more or cow ^«s iless at his mercy, was the German comitatus, described in an (earlier chapter. In it men who were themselves nobles attached themselves as personal friends and followers in war- like exploits to some chief. Every king and duke and count itended to gather about him such a band of personal follow- ers, on whose loyalty he could rely and whom he employed In the chief offices and rewarded with gifts — usually of Hand. Now, when the State disappeared, these personal {warrior bands did not. It was no longer possible to collect a national army, but all over the land powerful men had their personal followings and there was altogether a large warrior class for the servile peasantry to support. These powerful local magnates reared on their estates strongholds as a refuge and defense against the raids of the Northmen and other invaders, and with their origin of personal followings beat off outside attacks and feudal held their estates for themselves free from any external control. These strongholds, at first wooden tow- ers or enclosures raised on a hill or other vantage-point or jupon an artificial mound, later developed into the elabo- rate stone castle. From personal relationships we must now turn back to trace the other element in feudalism, dependent land tenure. iWe have already seen that the peasants held Dependent strips of land, which they usually did not own in land tenure 'the full sense of that word, but which belonged to a villa or manor, and over which the lord had so many lucrative rights that he still seemed the great landowner, and the peasants to be merely his tenants, nay, more, his dependents and serfs. Yet they were not dispossessed of their holdings and passed them on to their children. They were hereditary tenants on a perpetual lease. Such a servile holding on a